[Julie Deane]

Here's what I have been doing this school year - getting too little sleep, leaving the dishes for the morning because I am too busy with projects at night, not putting away the clean clothes so that they are on every open space in my room while the dirties go to the floor, never getting around to washing the car, paying a neighborhood child to walk the dog these last ultra-busy weeks of school, buying fresh foods meaning to cook them but not getting around to it so throwing them out, eating too much fast food, getting charges once on a credit card because I lost track of the bill in my mess and paid it late.

Here's what I plan to do - work only 4 days a week next year, with an agreed cap on how many kids I see per week (I'm a speech-language pathologist in a public school system). Before this I had to take however many were thrown at me, and it was always horrendous numbers. It means a 20% pay cut at the same time that certain bills, like insurance, are going up, so I am dealing with fear, but feel it is necessary for sanity. Plan to supplement income if possible by renting out a master bedroom that I am transforming into an efficiency apartment. Maybe do some supplementary contract speech therapy if things get too rough financially. Watch my expenditures more carefully. Certainly hope to sell more portraits, and hope that the gallery owner who took me on this year can sell some commissions like she did for other portrait artists in the past.

I need some balance in my life, including taking the time to exercise and eat right. Adding art to an already stressful life messed me up physically to some degree, too. So - enough already - I am wanting to paint, but not to the degree that I kill myself. With another day free, I hope to use that time wisely, which will include painting/drawing time.